“Exclusive” Or “Oops”?

Looking at a big, bannered “Exclusive” on THR telling us that Christian Bale is not playing Steve Jobs in the Sony movie has me perplexed: The trade has claimed “exclusives” on developments, and then “exclusives” when they fell apart, multiple times on this movie. They’ve made it seem like this Jobs film has had more iterations than the iPhone.

This is the second time Bale was set by the media — first with David Fincher and now with Danny Boyle — followed by two “exclusives” that he bailed. This most recent version took a bizarre turn because Aaron Sorkin made an encouraging public statement. In between the Bale non-stories, Leonardo DiCaprio was set and then unset. Insiders say that as yet, no substantive negotiations have taken place with any actor. They still hope to set an actor to get into production by the winter.